Undersea Windows
Sitemap Undersea Windows --- --- --- --- --- Windows Out Into The Sea : External Windows in Rapture are NOT like ones on Surface buildings/skyscrapers. They have to be significantly stronger (like by 2 or 3 Magnitudes), and strongly supported by the buildings wall structure. Rapture sea windows have to be integrally built/embedded into the thick structural walls/ceilings. They would get installed during surface construction to seal the building section before it was lowered to the final installation site. You only see a small part of their metal framing structure, which has to be sunk DEEP into the adjacent walls to distribute the force of the water pressure upon the window. The bigger in area the window is, the thicker the glass needs to be to hold up against the increasing leverage force pushing into the middle of each pane (and acting to bend it inward). The oversized windows first seen in Neptunes Bounty --- --- --- Dim, Dimmer, Dark : One Problemo with Rapture's stylish Art Deco cityscape skyline is : Due to the short distance over which light gets completely absorbed in water, any tall/fancy buildings/decorations/towers/signs dwindle away with distance into darkness VERY FAST, and can hardly be seen a hundred feet away. So you don't get much "bang for your buck" if you are styling them "for effect", especially when the costs of undersea building is many times of what it is up above the Ocean surface. This then loses much of the decorative aspect of what we think of as Art Deco type architecture for Rapture buildings). Interior use of 'external' architecture is hampered by the need to contain them within limited open space volumes - when attempted often leading to a great deal of unused space (as was seen in BaSx). Note- Any attempt using ultra bright lights to illuminate things for longer distances then would be too intense for anyone close up. Remember that Bright sunlight dwindles to nothing within a few hundred feet. chart pix --- --- --- Those Fricken Huge Windows : Real World buildings at Rapture's time generally didn't have huge windows. And in Rapture, buildings cost many times as much to build as in any Surface city (not just the difficulties of its undersea location, but also that the windows have to be overbuilt beyond the strength of German WW2 bunkers to withstand the ocean depth's pressure). Big windows require big, more complicated, walls of metal reinforcement. It was not just the expense, but because they were a liability - even ones just above the surface from wind, and that's hardly with some 280 pounds per square inch constant water pressure pushing on them from the outside, as they are in Rapture. SO you would have SMALLER well-supported windows. The window pane transferring forces - inward compression onto the building shell structure. Embedded with a strong metal frame's tension (tensile strength) pulled towards the inside. The wider the 'glass' is, the harder it is to make it stay flat and not bend/bulge inwards at its center where destructive leverage is maximized. The window's design must work against those forces. AND The force involved increases linearly with the window's size. Few composite windows we saw were curved or domes (which act as arches to horizontally transfer the in pressing force). Most important would be many of the glass panes themselves having that shape - employing curves to oppose for the pressure forces. We saw some ROUND windows, in Paupers Drop, which helps assist in minimizing the force leverage at the window pane's center. Neptunes Bounty had huge windows (needlessly, except to 'look good' for the game scene). Even more HUGE windows were seen after the 'Big-ification' in the BaS DLC -- Infinite-itus where they got stuck on a style of huge volumes, for a place that should have been more closed-in, as per the original/previous visions of Rapture. ---- Window Fun In The Deep Blue Sea. Diagram of pressure forces stressing a square window pane. Note -- in the middle it is MANY MANY TIMES AS GREAT as at the edges -- its the leverage of the force pushing in at the middle of all the unsupported 'glass'. --- --- --- Diagrams of Force on 'Plates' The Thick Glass Problem : (depth 600 ft = 280 lb/sq in pressure on one side) - Why Those huge Windows are problematic. * Glass strength - its tensile strength is fairly low : 30 vs 400-550 for structural steel * Its Shear Strength likewise is bad (glass generally isn't ductile like metals) * "Toughened glass", heated and chilled which closes off defects improving strength upto 5X (expensive and hard to do in large panes) * Polycarbonates (a plastic) are less resistive to chemicals, cost alot more, but do have much higher strength (but lose strength at a significantly lower temperature - melting). * Curves are better for handling compression across the window material's shape vs. flat panes with its increased shear effects. Curves give a partial 'arch' support effect (compression utilized). * And what happens to glass when you try to bend it ?? Not good. * These are windows, so the optical quality is very important (if poor enough then is no point having a window). * Suffers a similar effect for any 'framing' when multiple panes are used - the supports (if they also aren't to bend) have to be as massively strong as the main structural walls - more even, as the window edges have transmitted to them ALL the pressure force from that window surface, which is NOT supporting itself directly. Conclusion - Many Smaller windows for Rapture, and Some larger ones (still FAR smaller than the absurd ones seen a few places) would be reserved for things deserving their expense. - --- --- --- --- --- . .